I just casually drew, and didn’t do an underpainting.
2nd day:The second day, I realized flowers have too many petals. I prefer looking at other people’s flower paintings.
And the 3rd day, when I decided more work wouldn’t make a huge difference, so I’m done:

I didn’t find it too slow – I certainly didn’t make hatch marks, like I’ve read that you have to do with egg tempera. I wasn’t making lots of subtle transitions, granted… I used a lot of washes and some dry brush.

Oh yeah! Look at the signature. It’s horizontal, so I consider it finished. I’ll start signing sketches at a slant. And do you see an ‘e’ after the date? That means it’s done with egg paint. Awesome code.

Bristol is not the friend of graphite. I found a public domain of birds, I think seagulls, and I’ve been sketching it, but the bristol shows my erasures and fingerprints, but I’m having fun anyway. I might be getting addicted to sketching. Oh, the photo is named according to keywords. sky-flying-animals-birds. I thought that was adorable, though, like a child named it. Sky! Flying! Animals! Birds!

I had Gimp darken my photo of my drawing-in-progress.
(Now I’ve got to run outside and garden. Maybe I’ll see some sky! flying! animals! birds!)

Hey, I came back in and put on some thin egg paint. And I thought – why don’t I sign sketches at a slant? It would be code for “This is a sketch”. Finished paintings I could sign horizontally. Umm, what could I sign vertically? Upside down? Mirror image?…Negative slant?

Unfortunately, I had thought it a good idea to paste the bristol to acid-free cardboard. The egg in the egg tempera overpainting did NOT think it was a good idea. Instantly, the corrugation showed through. I had problems with a mottled face. The face became more spotted because of my stupid reluctance to squeeze all the water out of my brush while I dry-brushed glazes.
I’ve got that situation better now,

Midpainting in egg tempera (egg yolk)

but I’m thinking about switching to oil, because I’ve lost the brightness. Should I? Would that make the corrugation look worse? Ug. Arg.
I don’t know. All I can think is, ‘This woman is on a diet of milk, eggs and oil. Should I feed her so much?’

I say it’s done.

After touch-ups and varnish.

Some of the skin is too opaque now. I wish I could have kept the beautiful translucent glazes.

I’ve convinced myself that the corrugation is organic. Charming. I want you to say, when you look at it, “My golly, this is charmingly corrugated!” If you’re a museum curator, I want you to say, “After having seen this, I’m going back to the museum to crumple all the paintings!”

This is egg tempera. I’m at a stopping point, because I have no idea what to do next.
The photo is showing the darks around the petals too harshly. But I am using intense synthetic organic pigments. Those puppies sit up and bark. Not like the old dogs of the earth, the iron oxides, etc.
I’ve gone through these steps:

I transferred my drawingCasein paint for the first shadowsThe first layer of egg tempera paintPutting on dark